Maybe the ACLU should think about a name change, some rebranding … (It’s funny cos I typed that name change comment before I’d even reached the end of the article. Looks like Reason has the same idea.)

I regret that purchase. Immensely.

Gah those ears. Maybe fighting is the wrong career move.

Well, she dropped a pebble in the outrage pool. It’s only a matter of time now.

I’ve processed my Gaiman grief and am moving on with my life.

Nice alliteration, jackass.

I guess if you’re gonna jump out of your car to dance for a video like a moron, you sort of have those injuries coming. Because you’re a moron.

Just because I know where it is doesn’t mean I have any intention of sharing that information with you.

Maybe she doesn’t want me to test knit for her any more.

Well, that was weird.

That’s never happened before. You make a donation through GoFundMe and they fucking charge the donator for it and call it a tip? Screw you, GoFundMe.

I should just switch to boxer briefs.

I think saying “most women” is a dangerous exaggeration.

Yeah, but where you gonna get cloudberries?

Might be fun. Might be weird. I do not know.

This guy sounds like a self righteous, virtue signalling douche, but it’s his company and he can do what he wants. People don’t have to work there. Marion Nestle will be my college’s keynote speaker at our lecture series this fall, coincidentally.

You can’t take my meat from me!

“It is therefore unfair and inaccurate to point a finger at Flint and repeatedly use the word “poisoned.” All it does is terrify the parents and community members here who truly believe there may be a “generation lost” in this city, when there is no scientific evidence to support this conclusion.”

Finally made it through The Staircase. I hate all of those people. And obviously he murdered his wife.

I really should have made those notes in a different notebook. Dammit.

I need to just accept the sad sad fact that I will be stuck in this job until I die. I wonder how many more deans I’ll have to get used to before that happens.

I’m just happy Matt Berninger finally came to his senses about his stupid hair.

I never even finished the last Doctor Who series. I seriously doubt I’ll be tuning in for the chick.

So it’s not plausible to take actual quotes and pair them with stock photos? It happens all the time. It’s called advertising.

Evidently, I have lost readers. And here I thought adding new features would keep people interested.

It is just not really my thing.

Well great. Now I feel like a fat loser instead of just a loser. Yay.

I thought that said “bitch-perfect.” It did not.

No one is ever going to guess a password I used six fucking years ago. Frankly, I’d be shocked and flabbergasted if they guessed a password I used last week. JAYSUS.

They used to call me the Queen of Ektar. Now I am a woman without a realm.

The book was better is true of just about everything except anything written by Stephen King.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired.

Who’s call is it then?

Blah blah blah, yeah, we get it.

I don’t like you right now, pal.

Maybe he’s just a serial killer.

I am clearly that kind of grandma.

Yeah, I’ve never been wild.

Do you think they meant to call them sandwinches?

FINALLY. My favorite Triscuits are back in stock!

That is some seriously shady shit.

But bitch-perfect should totally be a thing, right? It’s pretty fantastic.

Fantaxic.

That Libertarian candidate for governor in the Mitten REALLY should have had someone proof their websites. Good Lord. It’s embarrassing. I think I like the other guy better anyway. Although the other guy’s website is rife with double spaces after periods. Kind of appalling.

Confirm humanity. Ha. Look, checking that box can confirm someone is human, but I’m not sure it can legitimately confirm their humanity.

“Improve and expand surveillance systems.” … Is that really the language we should be using?

We can clearly see that I have reached the stage of not giving a fuck about what my hair looks like in this humidity.

This book is so effective that I don’t even give enough of a fuck to finish it. (Just kidding, it just wasn’t that interesting.)

In other words, I’m not impressed. I mean I picked this book up because I was genuinely looking for a way to care less about shit in my endless pursuit of zennishness. Work shit. Political shit. Work shit. Self righteous virtue signally shit. Work shi- yeah, you know, just a lot of work shit. I thought, “Maybe this is like when Peter is hypnotized in Office Space and he just doesn’t give a fuck any more and somehow becomes wildly successful at work. Cos I need to be Peter.” But yeah, it’s not.

Manson fills all these pages up with gems like “Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another,” and “Don’t just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow,” or “In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fuck about many people and many things. And like the road not taken, it was the fucks not given that made all the difference,” like some drunken frat boy philosophizing at a kegger in the hopes of getting laid.

Kudos to you, Mark Manson, for saying a bunch of crap everyone already knows and has said a million times and capitalizing on it. Credit where it’s due. But I’m gonna have to hop off your bandwagon on this one.

“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. This is a total mind-fuck. So I’ll give you a minute to unpretzel your brain and maybe read that again …”

Here’s how I’ma “unpretzel” my mind: by throwing this book in the burn pile. I’m not even going to donate this bitch. I’d hate to have any part in perpetuating its circulation.

I’m not even normally the self help type. It’s all so much touchy feely lie back and tell me all about it while we get in touch with our inner child and soothe it to sleep with milk and cookies foolishness, in my view. I don’t really do FEEEEELINGS. So I think it’s safe to say I was at a pretty low point in the course of events that led me to picking this book up. Plus, let’s face it, I’m a sucker for a book that so blatantly flaunts the fuck word. (Though it would have been more daring to drop the ink splat in the title. So much for not giving a fuck.)

Or is this book supposed to be tongue in cheek? Humor? A self help mockery? I honestly don’t know. But I don’t think it is. I think it’s dead fucking serious.

Of course, what do I know? I’m not a best selling author, I just trash their books on my blog. (Which I would feel kind of bad about, but I’ve remembered how to not give a fuck. And a lot of these books really do suck. Also that wasn’t even the point of this series in the first place. I need to get back to books that are actually good, but that I just keep putting down.)

I just. I can’t pull the trigger on that one. I keep attempting to, and I can’t do it.

Is there a “personal” object that says “my heritage is a long line of people who are uncomfortable sharing personal shit with coworkers because it’s nobody’s business and if you press me on this I will cut you?”

The surest way to make me want to separate even more from the TEAM.

I mean Jesus. Why do people think that shit is a good idea?

I feel like my entire vocabulary is comprised of the fuck word today. Including punctuation.

just kidding

Is it time for lunch yet? I really need to GTFOH.

I need a t shirt that says GTFOH.

Now I have Aimee Mann stuck in my head.

Yeah, that Queen movie actually looks like it might be pretty good.

Maybe if it were mine I’d feel differently. But it isn’t. And I don’t.

We’re still not past this bacon trend? Where we put bacon on all the things? That’s unfortunate.

Once again, I have only the Kindle version, so I printed the cover for your entertainment purposes.

Let me preface this by the usual – there are possible spoilerish statements in what follows. Read on at your own peril!

Let me also preface this by expressing my love for Tana French. I really, truly, love Tana French. I love how each of her installments progresses organically from the last without being a technical sequel. I love that they’re gritty without being cliche. I love that they’re set in Dublin and the surrounding area – a stop on my someday maybe list. I love that her characters are all deeply flawed human beings but flawed in entirely believable and realistic ways.

I do not love this book.

I really, really do not love this book. I did not love this protagonist when she was introduced in the last book. I love her even less now that she’s the main character. She is entirely cliche. I’m something like just under halfway through the book and I swear to God, I’m having chest pains from holding my breath waiting for the massive chip on her shoulder to tip her down a flight of stairs.

Why do so many writers fall into the trap of “If I’m going to portray a strong female lead she has to be a ball busting bad ass with no room for any kind of softness because soft = weak and GOD FORBID A WOMAN SHOULD EVER APPEAR WEAK” even though softness does not at all imply weakness and why is it OK to portray men as soft but not women and also, why do we have to hate on men and emasculate them at all?

What I’m saying, in all my run-on glory, is that French has suddenly fallen into that (to me) tired ass trope of you can only depict women two ways – (1) I will kick your ass and maybe share some steamy sex with you, but I will not be NICE because NICE IS WEAK; or (2) I’m a weak pathetic milquetoast who needs either a good strong man to lift me up or a (see no. 1) STRONG female to show me the light and the error of my weak pathetic ways.

I just don’t remember French being so obvious about it in the past. I mean every book comes with its share of tropes and cliches and what have yous. That’s pretty standard everywhere. But it’s like she got to The Trespasser and just suddenly didn’t give a fuck any more.

And the story line itself. I feel like the first 40something% because page numbers are not reliable in e-versions which is kind of annoying was just a giant red herring waste of time. And yet another massive cliche in itself. And I’m honestly questioning if I even have the energy to plow through the rest of this thing.

I mean I probably will. If for no other reason than to find out which character will be featuring in her next Dublin Murder Squad installment, which, if there is a God and He is in His Heaven, will be back up to the standard I’ve come to expect from someone who is normally a really frigging outstanding novelist.

I guess there is one thing I love about this book. The cover. That’s a great cover. But I still haven’t even figured out what the hell the title means. Did I mention I’m almost halfway through the book? Usually a girl can discern the meaning of a title by now. But also? Why is French’s name bigger than the book title? That just seems like “Hey, we already know this is not Tana’s best work, so buy it because it’s a Tana French and let’s just not get into the rest of it, mmmkay?”

Have you read it? Tell me I’m not wrong. Tell me it’s as bad as I think it is. And then tell me the next book will be better. Sooooooo much better. Because if it’s not, I really think Tana and I just need to start seeing other people.

“Don’t vote for the person who tells you you deserve something. Just don’t do it if it’s something other than life, liberty, or the pursuit of possible happiness. If everyone is telling you you deserve something, vote for the one who is promising you the least. Be suspicious of the man or woman who tells you you deserve everything. Because you don’t.” ~ Mike Rowe

Maybe it’s something else.

I’m just not sure I can do this anymore.

“Libs are always hating on Chick-fil-A, but Chick-fil-A has never arrested a black man for not buying a sandwich.”

I don’t think anyone’s reading it anyway.

She just seems to be deeply out of touch with how “regular” people live. I mean she might as well be Gwyneth Paltrow.

Wow.

Why is that being treated as a complaint?? That’s fucking stupid.

I need some speakers.

Sorry. Right back to where I was before. I just don’t feel like I belong and you’re doing nothing to change that with your actions and no amount of telling myself I do belong is making that true…

This just in: jentober is not actually heartless.

I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions. I can’t make people follow directions.

I couldn’t hold up the book, because I only have the Kindle version, so I printed out the cover to share my disdain.

WARNING – This post is a big fat spoiler, so if you haven’t read it and plan to, don’t read on.

I’ve thrown this image of the painting in here to block the spoilers for you (you’re welcome) and also to say – LOOK. The painting itself isn’t even particularly compelling. It’s like they made the very cover of the book a big fat foreshadowy warning.

I’m throwing this on the pyre since I mentioned it in my introduction. The difference between this and other titles in my series is that I know precisely why I can’t finish this book – I fucking loathe it.

Sorry (not sorry at all), perhaps that’s a bit harsh. Nevertheless it is true. This book has no redeeming qualities. None. And it just keeps going on and on and on and on and on. I mean Jesus. How long must you subject the reader to the seemingly endless poor life choices of your utterly despicable protagonist?

I take it back. The dog. The dog was the one decent thing about this black hole of human waste.

Literally every single bad thing that happened to this jackass-not-a-PRO-tagonist (whose name has completely escaped me now) was one hundred percent his own damn fault. Everything could have been avoided had he simply not been a selfish asshole for five minutes. But no, he made bad choice after bad choice. He lied, he stole, he consumed untold quantities of illicit substances – he was a giant dick.

I don’t care how this book ends unless it’s in his untimely and well deserved death.

He could have redeemed himself at any point, too. That’s the truly irritating part. Like, dude. Just make one decent decision. Just tell the truth about one goddamn thing. Just give back the stupid painting. But no. Shove it back in your pillowcase or wherever the hell you’re keeping it today and keep panicking. Marry the sociopath. Forge more antiques. BE A DICK ALL THE TIME. Yeah, that’s totally the right path.

He’s not even an anti-hero. He’s just a villain all the way around. (What the hell is his name? … Theo. Thank you, Google.) I mean I love a good anti-hero. What red blooded American girl doesn’t love a good anti-hero?

And I’ll admit, I don’t have a lot of patience for addict stories. I’ve known an addict or five in my life, and I don’t have a lot of sympathy. Sorry (again, not sorry).

I guess that’s my whole problem with books like this. Or even reality. Everyone has a choice. Everyone has endless choices. Why are people always making the wrong ones? Shit. Now this has turned into a preachy homily on living a better life. Like I’m better than anybody else. I’ve made my share of bad choices. (I mean, let’s just not talk about the 90s, OK? Also that period around the 2008 election in which I finally threw off the shackles of pretending to be liberal and went a little overboard. Actually genuinely sorry about some of that vitriol, chickens.) I guess I just think if you’re going to write 700+ pages on some drug addled angst ridden selfish piece of shit, there better be a healthy dose of redemption thrown in. And if there is one thing this book is lacking, (and there isn’t just one thing, let’s be clear), it’s redemption.

Unless that happens at the end, which I’ll never know, because I am not finishing this book. I like myself too much for that.

I wish the world offered refunds on books you bought and now wholly regret. Is it true that it took Donna Tartt ten years to write this book? I can’t believe it isn’t taking every reader ten years to slog through it.

I’ve just this minute realized that two of the books I hate most in the world were Pulitzer contenders. This piece of trash won it for fiction, and Eggers was nominated for non-fiction. Who the hell makes these decisions??

Maybe I should file this one under a new category – “Books I Utterly Despise.”